I
loved the way Sarah Palin mocked and derided Obama for his community
service on the streets of Chicago, devoting himself to “the least of these” when he could have been making big
money on Wall Street, or, if he wanted to be really noble, serving as
the mayor of a suburb in the oil-rich state of Alaska.
Palin, a
self-described pit-bull with lipstick, must find Jesus's example of
“community service” to the least of men downright hilarious, compared to the serious
responsibility (and true charity) involved in getting streets paved for
upwardly mobile Alaskans.
In her speech she also said, “Hope is
not a strategy.” But isn't this the strategy that Jesus asked his
followers explicitly to embrace? Wasn't it Saint Paul who said, “. . . for we are saved by hope“? Wasn't it Saint Peter who said, “Be prepared to give witness to the hope that is in you”? Isn't hope the very condition and ground of life for Christian believers — not just a strategy but the strategy?
It makes you wonder just what it is Sarah Palin likes about the Christianity she professes. Saint Paul also said, “And now abideth faith, hope,
charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.” Having
mocked hope and charity, what is Palin left with? Faith, I guess
— pinned like a cheap plastic crucifix to the pit-bull collar.
I can't agree more! The cynicism of these people is absolutely galling. The huge irony is that you have a bunch of nominally Christian people applying an 'ends justify the means' approach to political life. It's a philosophy that is totally absent from — even antithetical to — the gospels.
The term “whited sepulchre” comes to mind.